


I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

by endofmeandeverything



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: 1930s, AU, Depression, Era-appropriate lingo, Inappropriate Relationships/Power Dynamics, M/M, Mental Institution, attempted suicide, reparative therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6795091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofmeandeverything/pseuds/endofmeandeverything
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, Richard has learned that no one much wants to hear the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Upstate New York reminds Richard of home.  The autumn air holds the same crisp scent of rain as it drips down the dying leaves, dragging the branches of the looming trees toward the gravel road, saturating the soil and drawing out the scent of rot as the wheels of the automobile rattle over the winding road.  The compulsion to roll down the window and take a long deep breath of air clear from the brackish London fog is a strong one, but Richard controls it, folding his hands in his lap and looking ahead at the rigid set of the driver’s shoulders, at his eyes in the rearview mirror, squinting forward around the bend.  He’ll enjoy the weather later.  The asylum has broad grounds, they say, thirteen acres on the shores of Seneca Lake.  Soon there’ll be snow on the ground and time enough to enjoy that open air he’s been missing so desperately since he left for school and to make his way in the crowded city whose night lights obscure the stars.

“Be there in a matter of minutes.”  The man in the front seat doesn’t remove his hands from the wheel, but his eyes flicker in the rearview mirror, back and forth, from the road to Richard’s face.  “You ever been to an asylum?  Big one, big windows.  Big gates.” 

Richard smiles just a little.  He’s tempted to tell the man that of course he has, but he hasn’t, he hasn’t at all.  The hospital in London had been just another building with a dirty brick facade, with small windows and clean beds and that he’s never so much as sat face-to-face with someone who was tethered by anything stronger than his own bad habits.  But that isn’t something he wants people to know, not even this innocuous man with the mustaches.  He isn’t as young as someone might expect, but he’s always been nondescript, and he wants to make his mark still.  He can’t do that if it gets around the despite his stellar recommendations, he’s done nothing noteworthy in his entire career.

“I’m sure it’s lovely.”

“From the outside.”  The man presses the brake, and Richard looks up to see the largest institution he’s ever seen, a masterpiece of red brick and chimneys rising from behind the treetops to dominate the landscape.  “Guess it’s all perspective, eh?”

“I’d suppose you’re right,” Richard said.  His eyes were riveted to the smoke pouring from one chimneys, nearly invisible against the overcast sky.  The windows are not lit against the dim day.  “How much longer?”

“Five minutes to the gate.  Takes ‘em a while to answer, though, and open up.  Gotta lock down I suppose.”

Richard doesn’t indulge the man’s passive curiosity.  He has no tales of screaming wards in gowns running rampant through the halls, vying for escape.  The ideas that so permeate the public--even his parents, God bless them--seem eager for some indication that life inside the walls of an asylum are more interesting than life outside.  Over the years, Richard has learned that no one much wants to hear the truth.

The gates are just as beautiful as the rest of the place, eerie and nearly overgrown by the Dutchman’s pipe twining over the walls.  They are well-oiled, swinging open nearly silently by a man in a jacket unseemingly thin for the bite in the air, onto a broad expanse of lawn riven only by the long drive to the front doors.  Even at this distance, he can see the figures dressed in black awaiting him there.

“Here we are.  Quite the welcome party for a man with two bags.”

“I suppose.”

His nerves, which he’s managed to quiet most of the journey, return full force.  His throat closes, and without thinking he reaches for the letter of offer he’s kept in his breast pocket since its receipt; beneath his damp palm, the paper rustled reassuringly.   As they approached, Richard straights his collar and takes a few deep breaths, composing himself in anticipation of the superintendent taking one look at his new sweating, anxious doctor and dismissing him on sight.  Of course he knows the likelihood of that is low, especially considering the shortage of qualified psychiatrists these days, but he can’t help but fear.  He wonders what his driver would say were he to climb straight back into the cab as soon as he arrived.

The driver parks and bustles around to open the door for Richard, who climbs out as delicately as he can manage.  There are now only two women standing before the door, one in a fine silk dress and the other in nurses’ whites.  It’s a surprising reception, Richard thinks, and smiles.  Perhaps the late hour has prevented the arrival of the superintendent.

“Mr. Armitage.”  The woman in the silk dress is handsome despite her age, her grip firm when she takes his his hand.  “I’m Mrs. Weston, the superintendent’s wife.  My apologies, my husband had urgent business of he would have been here to meet you himself.  He’ll meet with you tomorrow, if that’s agreeable, and in the meantime you’ll have to suffer through our hospitality instead.”  She beams at him with all the charm necessary for a state function; such candidness makes Richard uncomfortable, but his manners have never deserted him before and he steels himself for perhaps a long and draining evening of fanciful courses rather than a cold sandwich eaten in his shirtsleeves.

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” he says, but Mrs. Weston takes over with the manner of one used to command.

She gestures to the young woman in whites to assist the driver with the bags, turning her smile back on Richard.  “Come in, come in.  Let’s get you settled in before dinner.  It’s usually served in the staff dining room for those with on campus, but you’re more than welcome to take it in your room this evening.  I’m sure you have unpacking to do, and busy day tomorrow.”

“Perfectly fine, I’m sure.”  Relief floods Richard and for the first time since he’s left London he offers a sincere smile in return.  She threads her arm through his to guide him into a foyer as fine as any he’d seen in a great house, past a vacant reception desk and up a winding staircase to the second floor.  The warm glow of the electric lights hardly touched the ceilings, and Mrs. Weston’s voice echoed down the wide tiled corridor of the second floor.  Some of the doors were closed, with brass plaques proclaiming ownership.  Most were vacant, broad desks bare of paperwork, bookshelves filled only with dust.  The click of their shoes punctuates the stream of chatter Richard is too tired to follow.

“And your office will be here,” Mrs Weston says, pausing at one of the last offices in the wing.  It’s near to the high windows and  Richard can only imagine how the sunlight will warm this cold place when winter passes over.  He can see already that the shelving will comfortably house his current library with room to spare for any new purchases, that there is ample space for patient files, and the desk is more beautiful than anything he’s ever owned himself.  For a brief moment, the threadbare red carpet covering the floor and the sheen fading from the aged wood of the desk reminds him of his father’s study back home.  He thinks his parents would be pleased to see how fine this place is, be pleased to know he has a good place.

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Weston’s voice is suddenly closer, and her hands creeps around his arm again.  The tips of her fingers press into his bicep.  Richard nods, aware of her eyes following his own gaze.  “Very beautiful.  I’m so pleased to be here.”

“We were so pleased to hear you’d accepted the position.  With your references, my husband was sure you were the one for us; he was surprised you’d come so far for anything less than deputy superintendent.  But maybe a few years down the line, hm?”  She jostles him and gives another one of those magnanimous smiles before turning to guide him further down the hall.

“You’ll see this is all the administrative block.  They renovated a few years ago, before all the trouble, you know, with the banks.  They thought the staff should live closer, rather than in E block.  Our home and the deputy superintendent’s  is just over the ridge there, of course, and open to all of you.  The work is never done, it seems!  But you’ll be kept in good company; most of the maintenance staff live here for convenience, and there are two other doctors who live on the grounds.  The rest live in the town; you’ll find they make most of their rounds two or three days a week.  I think the patients get the better of it when the doctor is closer, don’t you?  Anyway, you needn’t fear you’ll be living in a ghost town.”

She natters on about the architecture--some decidedly newer than the rest--and the turbulent times when the last superintendent had put a pistol in his mouth and left her and her husband to maintain order in the place while the world fell apart around them.  People couldn’t pay, she says, and her husband refused to turn out the fellows who needed them most, and the doctors refused to work for free, and ever since they’ve been struggling to make ends meet.  Richard gets the distinct feeling it isn’t his resume that’s landed him this position, it’s his inexperience and the lower salary that earns him.  

Richard finds he doesn’t much mind; he’s grateful for whatever chance he has to make a name for himself.  Willard may be that place--back at the end of the second Great War, the asylum’s prestige (and costliness) was known even across the sea in London.  Surely hard times have changed it as much as it’s changed all of America, but Richard thinks there’s still a chance.  He’s content to gaze out at the pockets of well-cared-for gardens between wards, the towering trees just beginning to shed their leaves, the wide windows with cloudy glass set into the massive walls.  Away from the gates with their heavy locks, it seems a nice place to live.  Richard feels history in the walls, in the cracks in the plaster and the window casings.  Just the same, he’s ready to make a future here.

“I’m so glad you feel at home already, just look at you.  I knew you’d fall in love the moment you stepped in the doors!  My husband did, and we’ve been here nearly fifteen years now.  Just think, next thing you know you’ll be just as must a fixture.  Here we are.”

Mrs. Weston produces a key which unlocks the door with a loud rumble of tumblers and allows the heavy door to be pushed open with a low squeal.  The room inside smells freshly cleaned, the windows wiped and floors shining beneath clean but faded rugs.  The drapes are drawn back upon a lovely view of rolling fields peppered with trees, and Richard wonders how he’ll fill all the space himself.  There is a lovely table and chairs, two sofas with worn cushions, and a door to the left opens to a bedroom dominated by a large bed dressed with sheets just as worn and clean as everything else in this place.  If perhaps he thought he’d be inhabiting the same small room and shared washroom with other doctors and assistants he had in London, his mistakes were happy ones.  The age of the place makes it feel homey and comfortable.  Richard senses Mrs. Weston looking at him expectantly.

“Well!  Let’s go in, shall we?”  She pushes at his shoulders until he takes his first steps inside.  “Here’s the electric,” she says, and turns on the switch that sends light flooding into the lovely little cracks and details and flaws in the parquet floors.  “So sorry, this is the only switch for this suite.  There are of course plenty of lamps; the staff will see that you have enough light.”

Richard realizes that the porter and the nurse have disappeared silently on their practical working shoes, leaving his two meager bags sitting alone in the middle of the sitting room.  He turns to find Mrs. Weston with her hands folded in front of her, gazing at him intently.  “Make yourself at home.  I’ll send you up something for your supper, I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“It would be much appreciated, thank you.”  Richard’s fingers find the button of his coat and he shucks it from his shoulders to drape it over the sofa.  Mrs. Weston’s gaze is difficult to shake.

“What a gentleman you are,” she sighs, and then claps her hands and comes forward to embrace him, pressing her lips first to one cheek, then to another.  “Well, your supper shouldn’t be long.  Do have a good sleep.  Mr. Weston will be ready to see you and give you the grand tour tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”  Richard wishes he might be rid of her without rudeness, and apparently God hears his prayers and she excuses herself with one last look over her shoulder as she closes the heavy door and leaves him alone in silence.

He thinks he’ll get a gramophone.  He suspects the music will fill the space well.

  
  


Perhaps the sandwich--ham and mustard and more delicious than he could imagine--has given him extra strength, because despite the steady forward crawl of the clock he finds the energy to spread his patient files across the table.  He organizes them neatly into stacks and is shocked to find that there are more than twenty in total, a massive amount of a cases with which to become familiar.  Some are very small, and Richard suspects that perhaps these are the idiots, shunted into the institution for no other reason than their families’ unwillingness to care for them.  There’s nothing much to be done in these cases, besides making them happy and comfortable, and Richard is pleased to note that the previous psychiatrists has left him plentiful notes on topics of interest and levels of cognition for each of them. 

The records of more interest are the larger ones, more complicated cases that Richard is eager to dive into.  The first depicts a highly intelligent woman plagued with hysteria who responds to treatment very little and whose notes are peppered with her quips, recorded by a psychiatrist who obviously found her amusing.  Another chronicles a young man prone to starting fires, whose enthusiasm is remarked upon several times.  

Reading through the notes scrawled in handwriting hardly legible, Richard begins to feel an affinity for people he’s not met yet, and the fear that’s plagued him all the way from London transforms into excitement.  He wonders if he’ll sleep tonight, or spend the hours ‘til sunrise perusing these files.

His exhaustion soon gets the better of him, though, and as the brass clock on the wall shows him it’s nearly three o’clock in the morning, he chooses his last file and decides that when he’s finished with this one he must get to bed.

  
When he closes the file he thinks he might not sleep again.  The images of vivid scars on the insides of Lee Pace’s wrists and the lines around his mouth as he smiled at a man in the afternoon sunshine of 1932.  He isn’t sure he wants to meet this man.  He isn’t sure he’s large enough to shoulder this burden.


	2. Chapter Two

Richard awakes with a start, his head throbbing and his jaw aching, his skin quivering with the remnants of a shiver.  The room is still dark and chill, the sunlight just beginning to show white against the barren floorboards.  Dust motes drift upward, spiraling away into the lingering shadow like the solid memories of his dreams trickle from his mind until all he’s left with is vague discomfort and the feeling of his nightshirt clinging to his back with sweat.  Several blinks clear his eyes and the motes fade away.

It’s nerves, he tells himself.  He’s always been prone to worrying; his mother always said if there wasn’t a thing to fret over, he’d make something up.  Though he shivers in his damp clothes, he throws the sheets aside and moves to gaze out over the dew-dropped meadows, enveloped in fog that collects on the window pane.  With great effort, he manages to wrest the lock open and press the window out; the gusts that look so gentle shaking the treetops across the green cut straight through him.  As usual, though, fresh air does the job; he finds that looking out into a bright fresh morning will help cure most woes, and his—being false—are easily dispelled now.

It’s a good job he left the curtains open, he thinks, looking at the unused alarm clock on the night table.: the only thing besides his bedclothes he unpacked the night before.  He finds his shirt and trousers just as neatly pressed as they’d been when his mother’s maid packed his bags.  They still smell of lavender sachets; the scent quickly stolen by a brisk breeze from the open window.

He’s hardly dressed himself when a knock intrudes upon his scattered thoughts.  He’s unsure what to expect from the day—he doesn’t do well with the unknown—and his unusual welcome committee the evening prior has done nothing to help him gain his footing.  Perhaps, he thinks, following a young porter back through the grandiose administrative block, this is a test: if one can’t survive the inconsistencies of life, one cannot work in a madhouse.  It makes perfect sense.  Richard is sure he’ll _make_ perfect sense of it, given time.

Rather than coming upon the door of a superintendent’s office, the porter leads Richard to a door like any other.  The superintendent looks like a clerk, he thinks with some surprise, sitting in a clerk’s small office, with a clerk’s messy piles of paperwork on every available space.  The man himself is nothing to behold, but Richard imagines with a wife as forceful as Mrs. Weston, there’s room for only one personality in the marriage.  If Mrs. Weston is the one to fear, then his anxiety has been misplaced.  Willard and all its inhabitants are surprising him.

“Good doctor!”  The man has a kind smile, but a tired one; there are lines around his eyes that age him, and his hair is in disarray already.  There is a drink at his elbow that takes Richard by surprise, but perhaps it’s iced tea.  The idea doesn’t ring quite true—perhaps the jovial flush in his sunken cheeks has another source.  “So pleased to meet you, and I’m sorry about last night.  Things come up, you know.  The mad ones don’t keep civilized schedules.  I hope you find my wife a good enough replacement?  She showed you the place, I’m sure, it’s her pride and joy.”

“She’s quite knowledgeable about the building,” Richard concedes.  “Mr. Weston—”

“Oh, no, I’m Mr. Coombs.  Mrs. Weston is my wife, but damned if she’ll own that fact.”  The superintendent does not look ruffled at all by this fact, though Richard knows most men of his acquaintance would bristle at the thought.  His picture of their domestic life becomes clearer.  “It doesn’t matter anyhow, you can call me Charlie.”

Another surprise.  Richard has never had convivial relationships with his fellows, perhaps because he worked around men as silent as himself.  He’s grateful to the superintendent and his wife for the unusual friendliness with which they welcomed him.  He smiles, nods, thinks to offer his hand, and instead says, “Then I must be Richard.  I must tell you how glad I am to be here, and how grateful for the opportunity I am.”

“Psh!  I won’t insult you by implying you’re not talented, Richard, but to be quite frank you were the only fellow we could afford.  I’m sure you’ve never been in a proper institution before!  Well, here’s a chance to open your eyes—we’ll give you some experience, you’ll give us some much-needed aid in a trying time, and in the end I suspect I’ll send you on your way to a more prestigious institution with an excellent recommendation under your belt.  Sounds like quite a deal, hm?”

It’s impossible to take offense to this blunt summation of the situation, accompanied as it is by an intimate smile and a laugh just for the two of them.  Richard isn’t used to being so forthright, and the lack of appreciable structure in the place and all who dwell within is beginning to make him feel like a relic from an older age.  His parents did warn him about Americans and their propensity to make a joe of everything; until now Richard assumed it was an impression garnered from the Great War, when men about to die had danced with British girls in the streets and made light of it all.  He suspects it will take some getting used to, and he supposes that at least everything is out in the open.

Mr. Coombs grins and leans back in his chair, which is just as creaky as everything else in Willard.  He crosses his fingers in front of his face and says, conspiratorially, “Don’t tell my wife I’ve told you that.  She likes to keep up pretenses, you know.  This is a great house, she’s the mistress of it, and I’m head honcho.”

“Perhaps it’s her own way of toiling onward.  It’s much easier to success is physical structure.”

“Indeed it is, indeed.  We all have our vices.”  And he nods to the glass at his elbow, shrugs ruefully, and flushes as if he’s been chastised instead of offering the confession himself.  “We all end up mad here, you know.  Poor Alan—Mr. Firth, I mean.  He was super before me, shot himself when things went bad.  Couldn’t see a way out of the hole he’d dug, even with his position.  And now here I am, holding the reins, because our Board is preoccupied with money and not men.  What do you think of that, Richard?”

Richard wishes Mr. Coombs would stop calling him by his Christian name; despite the deluge of confidences spilling forth, he isn’t sure they’re quite so familiar with one another.  He smiles and shrugs, and says, “I’m sure you’re doing an admirable job.”  If he were to be as honest as Mr. Coombs, he’d say he wasn’t sure how they were getting along, but he’s kinder than that at more used to niceties.  “At the very least you can take comfort in the fact that you’ve not left these poor souls to rot in a gutter somewhere.”

“Or a jail cell, some of them.”  Mr. Coombs grins and shrugs and has a small sip of what Richard has determined in whiskey.  What he longs for is coffee, hot and strong and heady, a nice counterpoint to the grim gray sky trying to stifle the sunlight.  “Well, I do what I can, and what I can do is welcome you and give you the grand tour.  So long as nothing pressing calls me, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t, because pressing means trouble and no one likes trouble, I’m yours for the morning.”

Though Richard finds the man nice enough, the prospect of spending the morning on the receiving end of branching asides and long-winded stories is not a pleasant one. It’s just that he likes to think, and he’s anticipating a great need for time to sort his thoughts after today.  After all, he’ll be face to face with his patients for the first time, and he wants to be composed, to present himself as a psychiatrist ought to do.  After all, as his mother says, one can’t take back one’s first impression, and first impressions are important here. 

When Mr. Coombs tosses the last of his drink down his throat and heaves himself out of his chair with the groan of a tired but determined man, Richard decides there’s no polite way to decline.  (And, he thinks, even if Mr. Coombs is a personable sort, he doesn’t want to get on his bad side the first day.  He’s seen kind men in drink turn on a dime.)

“Let’s get on with it, eh?  The sooner we start, the sooner we finish, and I’m keen to have lunch on time today.  Mrs. Withers makes lovely meatloaf.  You’re welcome to join me, of course.”

This, at least, Richard declines.  Mr. Coombs takes no offense, seemingly understanding the desires to keep to oneself after a long hard day.  It’s occurred to Richard that his merriment is feigned, though the good temper behind it is likely not.  If it weren’t protocol—and Mr. Coombs clinging so desperately to a title he never quite earned—Richard suspects they’d both be happier if a porter were to show Richard the grounds.  As it is, Mr. Coombs adjusts his waistcoat and gestures for Richard to follow him.

 

 

The beauty of the place fades the deeper one winds into it; the sunlight, so promising when streaming through high windows, seems dirty where it slices across tile floors that have seen the tread of a thousand feet.  More than anything, Richard is stunned by the relative quiet of the place--it’s as if it’s inhabited by ghosts.

Those lovely arched windows are barricaded by iron bars whose white paint is flaking, much like everything else in A, B, and C block.  There are no fine antiques here, resting on careful display.  The hallways are lined with a meager collection of pushchairs and gurneys, all of which have seen better days.  In A block, a small number of long-care patients--idiots, Mr. Coombs explains quietly as they pass, and unlikely to ever see the free world again--gathered around as a porter replaces the wheel on one gurney.  There is a small scuffle, easily managed, when a young woman tries to take the discarded wheel and another man takes interest.  Mr. Coombs proves just as charming in ending the fight before it truly begins, but the porter shows no interest in anything but his work and offers only a cursory nod in greeting as they pass by.

Block A seems peaceful enough; the doors are unlocked to the garden and though the beds have been put to bed to avoid damage from the pending frosts, a few of the patients, dressed in shapeless woolen jackets, walk arm-in-arm under the watchful eye of a nurse.  Subdued, Richard thinks is the word, as though everyone there knows acknowledges this permanent stasis.  

Blocks B and C are less impressive; Mr. Coombs, using the key-laden ring the unlock every door they come through and to lock them after they’ve passed, glances anxiously over his shoulder as though he’s anxious to see Richard’s reaction to the circumstances into which they’ve been forced.  Richard, for his part, senses the man’s anxiety over his tenuous position and his desire to be seen as superintendent, and does his best to keep his face free from the confusion that peppers him.  After all, he reasons, he’s perfectly capable of listening without sitting in judgement, and it stands to reason he ought to be able to extend the courtesy to the sane as well as the mad.

It is difficult, however, not to see the cobwebs clinging to the pipes passing over the ceiling and to the lovely arches of the windows.  There are a few flies there, flickering as if still alive as they stir the air with their passing.

Most shocking to Richard though, are the doors to patients’ rooms.  Unlike Block A, these blocks seem inhabited by ghosts.  He feels the presence of others, trapped behind those doors barred by steel from the outside, and he hears them: someone chuckles, a woman is whispering prayers, low and urgent, and once there is a heavy bang, then another and another.

“We don’t have enough staff,” Mr. Coombs says.  The false cheerfulness is more present now, and as he gestures to the abandoned gardens outside, sweeps his hand as if to encompass the entire empty ward.  “It’s safer, I think, to keep them in their rooms. Rounds are four times a day, twice in the night, and it works well for us.  Much easier to keep them from hurting themselves or others.”

It’s impossible to disagree, however much Richard wants to.  He knows that sunlight and exercise have always assisted in poignant improvements in his own patients, and the papers published in recent years have no shortage of praise for the benefits of daily excursions in patients with acute depression and other severe psychoses.  He wonders if each of those patient rooms has a window of its own, if those windows are barred like those in a prison.  “I see,” he says, voice measured.

  
Mr. Coombs pats his arm and gives a look of sympathy; behind it Richard can see him pleading for mercy.  He’s doing his best, his half-smile says.  “One has to take the measures one must.  This place, it’s always been home to the severe cases.  I’m sure you know.  We’ve got folks from as far away as Ohio lodged here with us.  Of course, that was before, when there were better chances on treatment.  But what can you do?  You can’t throw them out.”

It’s an easier thing to understand than it is to accept.  Richard grudgingly nods and his mind begins to work around the restrictions of money and time and staff.  He knows that running himself and everyone else into exhaustion isn’t a viable plan—viable plans are made by men with less passion, less investment.  Richard knows that he cares too much to let the vagaries of reality interfere with his plans for the place.

He imagines he can occupy the patients coaxing the gardens back to life in spring; after all, sunlight and water will do the difficult work, and weeding and seeding are peaceful pastimes.  He’s sure there are annual flowers in the beds, and that the weeds will be easily plucked.  Until then, perhaps time spent cleaning.  There’s no reason those patients who are capable and not prone to violence shouldn’t be put to useful work which will occupy their minds and mediate the need for more staff.

“You look thoughtful,” says Mr. Coombs, clapping a hand on his shoulder and steering him away from the barred windows to the outside world.  Immediately Richard is returned to drab and dusty present and the sounds of the forlorn living their solitary lives behind locked doors.  “Maybe we just needed a new set of eyes, eh?  You should have dinner with us sometime this week.  Enlighten us.  I’m sure Mrs. Weston will be more than happy to entertain your ideas.  She has a boatload herself.”

The invitation takes Richard aback, as does the strained look on Mr. Coombs’ face.  He wonders whether it’s the implicit assumption that he isn’t doing everything he might or his wife’s anticipated eagerness of the potential rendezvous that sets his teeth on edge.  Either way, Richard isn’t inclined to agree quite yet, and defers answer.  This seems to please the superintendent, who only nods thoughtfully when Richard explains:  “I’m only lost in my own mind.  You know how it is.”

This must seem harmless, for the tour resumes with Mr. Coombs lodged firmly back in his slightly desperate amiability.  He leads Richard through the empty echoing halls, where spiders and dead flies and dust gather in the corners, and the remains of scuffles—marks on the walls, chipped paint, and in alarming instance what Richard believes to be a streak of dried brown blood—the only sign of inhabitants.

“And if you didn’t enjoy the doom and gloom of the patient housing, at least you’ll know we put the money where it matters,” says Mr. Coombs.  His air of uncertainty has faded as he leads Richard out of that melancholy place and into a covered walkway that connects the dormitories that what appears to have begun as a conservatory; there is a wide wall made entirely of glass, though now greenery grows there now.  The morning fog has lightened to a mist which flings to his skin and hair and makes him grateful for the fine wool of his suit, which keeps him warm even as his hair dampens on the brief walk.

These doors have two locks, to which Mr. Coombs informs Richard that all psychiatrists on staff have keys.  It will be his duty to, should he seek to use the medical facilities, supervise any other staff or cleaning porters who follow up his visits.  “Can’t be playing around with expensive equipment,” says the superintendent, and grins.

The door doesn’t open right away; instead, there is an awful rattle, and Mr. Coombs swears.  There is a commotion from inside, a cacophony of soft voices, and the clang of metal.  Someone moans softly, and Richard has a vision of staff meeting furtively to steal away whatever is worth having in the place—clearly Mr. Coombs has the same fear, because he rattles the door handle and assumes an authoritative voice when he shouts: “Here now, open this door immediately!”

“Mr. Coombs?”  It’s a young male voice, unsure and nearby.  The lock rattles, and the door is pulled open rather violently by a young nursing assistant in whites.  He looks pale and serious when he steps back to let them in.  “I’m so sorry, I thought you were due to be—oh, Doctor.”  The nurse straightens up.  He turns to the superintendent, both of them projecting calmness belied by the tense set of their shoulders.  “Of course, I should have expected your visit.  I’m so sorry, the session is nearly finished.  Of course you’re welcome to come in.”

“You’ll see our medical suite is as fine as any, even if we’re a bit short-staffed,” says Mr. Coombs, still clearly perplexed and squinting into the bright lights of what appears to Richard to be a finely equipped operating theater.  Every surface is clean and shining, a battalion of electric lights combatting the gray day pressing in from the outside.  It is scenic, and probably calming to patients, Richard thinks to have a walls worth of windows opening out onto private gardens—a lovely view.

But there is no battalion of doctors here; the photographs Richard has seen of treatments have always shown at least two doctors and a handful of nurses in the room, but here there are only two nurses and a young porter with a mop and bucket lingering in the shadows as if he hopes to avoid notice.  He looks too young to be working, Richard thinks, and ignores him.

The bed is occupied by a man whose limbs seem hardly to fit—tall and pale and still as death if not for the beads of perspiration gathered on his face and the mildest lifting of his chest with ragged breath.  There are straps, recently unbound from wrists and knees and ankles, swinging gently from the rails of the bedside, and the nurse wiping the patient’s face steps back and stiffens as if present at a military inspection.  She gazes with frank curiosity at Richard’s face, at the discomfort he is sure is apparent.

He’s never been part of an ECT session, but it was one among many firsts he expected to encounter here.  He was not expecting to be trained by nurses, however.  “Where is the proscribing physician?” he asks, curious as to whether this is common practice.

“Dr. Spinner comes to the hospital only three times a week,” explains the nurse.  He looks to Mr. Coombs for support, the words coming out stilted and a bit breathless.  “Some patients need more attention, you see, and something they treatments—well, he’s taught me how to do it, at least.  He thinks I’ll make a good doctor myself, someday.”  The man grins hopefully.  “I mean, once I get to school.”

Mr. Coombs still looks mildly uncomfortable, and has one hand shoved into his trouser pocket.  Even through the material, Richard can see the stark outline of his knuckles.  “There, you see.  We offer opportunities for all sorts here.  And how is—ah, yes, Richard, I think this is one of yours.”

“Lee,” says the female nurse, her voice low and even.  She doesn’t seem bothered at all by Richard’s gaze as she steps forward again.  “Excuse me, please.”  She slides one long-fingered hand beneath the man’s neck and says something to him softly.  His eyes—an odd golden color Richard has rarely seen before—flick to her face, but he cannot focus.  She has to press her fingertips lightly against his jaw to get him to open his mouth.  She pulls a soft rubber plate from between his teeth, and uses her free hand to smooth the hair away from his face.  It’s a tender moment, one Richard feels strange witnessing.

“Mr. Pace, yes.”  The superintendent shakes his head and says, “He shouldn’t be in long-term, but he is.  Some of them take to this life, you know.  Sometimes people don’t want to get better.”

The man’s hand, shaking hard and with dark bruises ringing his wrists—the bones there stand out like a starving man’s—scrabbles at Mr. Coombs’ clothes; he steps away, and the hand falls.  Richard swallows hard and thinks that nothing about this profession is pretty, but he’s chosen it.

“Carry on then, Mr. Miller, Ms. Anthony, and we’ll get out of your way.  Here, Richard, you’ll see him this afternoon and by then he’ll be right as rain and we’ll see if he manages a few words for you.”

There is a murmur of suppressed laughter at a joke that isn’t so funny in essence, and Richard is drawn away from the group and back out into the chill air.

“I’ll just get you through the dining room and we’ll find some coffee and some lunch, how does that sound?”

Truthfully, Richard isn’t hungry, but he follows anyway and leaves the sound of clacking metal and soft voices behind him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

London does not sleep nights; even in the wee hours of the morning, when decent folk are in bed, the streetlamps burn warm and steady and a man returning from late hours at the office might stumble across a stranger looking to borrow a match or buy him a drink.  Richard, who lives mostly in his own thoughts, always despised the sudden hoots of laughter or the raucous yell of a policeman on the chase when they drifted up into his window and disturbed his sleep.  Now, though, he misses the comfort of human presence.

Here at Willard, the night is a living thing.  It creeps in through the window panes, and beneath the doors, and lurks in the wardrobe and beneath the heavy bedframe.  It is stifling, overbearing, and the sole light in Richard’s chambers can hardly cast out the shadows that threaten to overwhelm him.  Outside one of the nurses makes her rounds, the beam of her torch her only feeble defense against the night.  Watching her, wondering if she feels as small and alone as he does himself, Richard thinks he would sacrifice a lot for that kind of bravery.

Richard does not believe in hauntings and spirits and things of that ilk; his own ordered mind refuses to accept that God would allow endless wandering on the grey plains between worlds.  Nevertheless, he thinks perhaps there are people here, in this place, keeping him unwelcome company.  It isn’t the dark, or the silence, or the cold, but the perpetual prickling feeling at the nape of his neck.  Were he to speak to himself rationally, as he does to patients, he would know that he is alone here and that the alien feeling that so unnerves him arises from his own anxiety about his loneliness and his homesickness.  It’s always easier to analyze others than it is yourself, however, and Richard has more patience than most psychiatrists he knows because he practices on himself. 

Right now he thinks the best medicine is a bottle of wine and a good night’s sleep.

The bottle is his best, the only one he brought from home (the rest having found a home in his parents’ already well-stocked cellars), and it was supposed to be celebratory.  Looking out into the darkness, feeling unseen eyes on him, knowing that he is alone on this floor, almost alone in this building, and utterly alone in his mind, he decides he’ll bring it out as in resolution.

There aren’t any proper glasses, and Richard isn’t of a mind to go and fetch one.  His water glass, still with marks from his lips around the rim, will have to do.  He empties it out the window, the noise swallowed by the night, and reluctantly uncorks the bottle.  The heady aroma fills the air, mixing with the scent of disuse that never really leaves a room, and placing him solidly in comfort.  There is no lounging chair, but the sofa is worn enough to put his feet up on as he drinks.

When his mind is properly softened, he wonders idly if he locked the door and is satisfied to find he doesn’t particularly care.  It strikes him as humorous—though he does not laugh—that he should be worried about someone entering unbidden.  The ghosts would have no trouble with the heavy oak, and the patients are safely locked away.  He’s probably safer here than he ever was in London, and laughs to think of telling his mother that—his patients, even the mildest cases, made her uncomfortable.  He thinks she’s worried that her own neuroses about his father stepping out on her—and he was, and they all knew it—were unfounded.

Before now, Richard has never been worried.  He is well-educated and deeply devoted to the practice of psychiatry, finding how it has helped him and those around him.  He thinks if he can help bring a small measure of happiness and security into the world, it’s on a face-to-face basis, by the treatment of patients, rather than his parents’ rather hands-off approach of donation to charitable causes.  Willard, however, is anything but peaceful.

Though silence reigns more often than not, the presence of those trapped in their rooms is felt throughout the place.  Perhaps there are no spirits, but memories and unhappiness have followed Richard home and now sit solid in the pit of his stomach, waiting to be drowned by wine.  He does his damndest to forget, but doesn’t think getting drunk so soon into his tenure here bodes well for the future and so downs only enough to quell the ache of anxiety in his belly.

He remembers Mr. Pace, who looked far from peaceful and happy as possible.  It was to be expected, of course, given his history.  And of course the severity of depressive state would require no doubt to most rigorous treatments, many of which were physically taxing.  The cure sometimes worse than the disease, Richard remembers his mother saying when he complained of cough syrup as a child.

Despite the darkness, it is still early enough to work.  (Richard despises the onset of winter.)  He refills his glass and takes Mr. Pace’s heavy file into his lap, propping his stocking feet up on the arm of the couch.  Wine has made his mind loose and the ghosts have faded back into the aged wallpaper.

The two photographs, hastily replaced the last time he’d delved inside, slip out onto his chest.  He fondles the corner of one, not knowing which it is, reluctant to find out.  His memory of the vivid wounds is still clear; raised and reddened skin, hardly healed, running from the delicate skin of the inner wrist halfway to the elbow, bisecting the network of veins beneath pale skin.  Even rendered in black and white, the images are violent. 

It is the other he hopes for, the photograph that made his stomach churn to look at, the one in which Mr. Pace’s face was so different he was unrecognizable to Richard upon their first meeting.  With another fortifying sip, he delicately turns the photo over and discards it, taking the other in hand with more surety. The drink in him allows him to peruse the photo with less discomfort, though he’s still not sure what he’s looking for within it or why it’s significant.

There are two men among a throng on a beach; the sun glints off the rippling water and against the droplets caught in their hair and the hollows of their throats.  It is late summer, it seems to Richard, and both men are dark with sun and wind, and there is laughter in the corners of their eyes.  It could be a set of brothers, or of lifelong friends; the affection is evident between the two.  It is so innocuous, and yet here it sits atop treatment schedules and interview sessions, a police report and testimonials from family, some of which are tearstained.  There is something there under the surface, hiding in the way the man’s hand clasps Mr. Pace’s shoulder, or the upturn of one corner of the mouth.

Richard knows that the answers are there in the file, but he isn’t sure he wants to read it thoroughly just yet.  His brief perusals last night had given him more than enough idea of his case load, but he wanted to maintain a bit of distance, enough to get to know each patient individual rather than as a collection of their syndromes as recorded by another hand.

And yet the feeling that he’s missing something here—and that there’s something missing from the files.  He pulls out the brief letters from family—the sister wrote more, her desperate love for her brother present in the scrawl of a trembling hand and the creases of the paper—describing a man of good cheer and even temper, with a ready smile and a profound work ethic.  The sister penned paragraphs about his creativity, his writing, the way his faith in humanity shone through in his prose.  To Richard’s disappointment, there are no samples of Mr. Pace’s writing, not even a diary, included in his files.  He’s curious to see just how well hidden this depressive persona was, that even his family suspected nothing until the sister arrived for a visit to find his clothes and bedsheets sodden with blood.

The police reports describe the family, father excepted, as hysterical.  Pace Sr. they described as unresponsive, perhaps in deep shock.  The unexpectedness of the event led to unverifiable claims of homicide in what was clearly, in police opinion, a suicide attempt.  Staff at the hospital rather agreed with the police, and their own brief interviews with a staff psychiatrist recommended Mr. Pace for in-patient treatment for his own health and to assuage the concerns of the family.  No contact has been maintained, and, considering the duration of Mr. Pace’s stay, Richard finds this reprehensible.  He wonders whether the family were instructed not to interrupt the psychotherapy or whether Mr. Pace’s owns silence terminated his familial bonds.  Richard decides this will be one of his first remedies: remind Mr. Pace that there are folk in the world who care for him.

He sets aside the police paperwork and family letters and begins to sort through the intake paperwork for Willard itself.  There are the initial health reports: thin and pale but otherwise quite healthy, no history of psychological illness, pills for appetite prescribed.  His interviews with the staff psychiatrists are more telling.

With a proper read-through, Richard can nearly imagine the scene.  Mr. Pace is calm, perhaps slightly sedated, and sitting primly but not anxiously in his chair.  Depressives are always desperate to seem in control—it’s why the syndrome is so difficult to detect until it’s too late.  Mr. Pace is no exception; Dr. Langley, who interviewed him, makes notes to indicate the passiveness of his demeanor, the way he answers questions surely and without hesitation, though not necessarily honestly.  The patient makes no attempt to convince Dr. Langley that he is sane, that he should be set free, but the doctor notes that this is perhaps a symptom of the depression: he has accepted his state and his inability to change it.  This is all too common. 

 _no anxiety, no fear, simple acceptance,_ noted Langley.  _Appears to be in the middle of a severe episode; not shocked that suicide resulted in hospital, family distress.  Recovery in question; patient does not appear to want help.  Suicide threat still present._

Richard is somewhat disappointed to find that the file is as straightforward as the pictures.  With the exception of the severity of the depressive state—which one finds more often among women—there is nothing much remarkable about Mr. Pace at all.  His length of stay and inability to improve were doubtless impeded by past psychiatrists, for inexperienced ones can do more damage than they know. 

Another wave of insecurity washes over Richard.  He is inexperienced with patients so patently disturbed, and considering that Mr. Pace has been languishing without improvement at Willard for nearly three years, he wonders whether he—with his experience in housewives and drunks—will be able to help him at all.  He can’t stomach the thought of failing, and to leave Mr. Pace as is would be to fail.

The nervous excitement he’s been carrying since he glanced over the case files last night dissolves into an agony of uncertainty.  He hopes to tame himself by the time morning rolls around; to let the patients see that he is unsettled is to risk unsettling them, and his caseload is full of people who should, at all costs, no be unsettled.

Perhaps the wine was not his best idea.  While is chases away the immediate stress, Richard finds that when left to ferment in his belly, it brings up childhood memories best left tucked away.  His inadequacies stand out in sharp relief compared to his father’s successes, and he tries not to catalog every time he’s failed to meet expectations.  The pride with which his parents had bidden him farewell carried him this far, but confronted with the realities of the situation, Richard wonders whether he isn’t in over his head and destined to return to England with no reputation at all.

The way he’s clutching Mr. Pace’s file is beginning to make his fingers ache and yet he finds it difficult to let it go.  He should sort what he’s looked through back into place and put it away, but the clock hasn’t yet struck ten and his feeling that there is something less routine and more important secreted away in all that paperwork eats at him.

His glass is empty.  He thinks it might be better to simply have an early night, but he gets up and drains the last of the bottle—wasted now, he’s not properly drunk but he can’t really savor the taste—into his glass and stretches.  There are no lights outside his window now:  the clock tower and the iron gate are vanished; not even the high brick wall demarking the perimeter is visible.  Richard moves to close and latch the window casings and this time, he draws the heavy drapes across the barren sight.  It isn’t something one wants to confront oneself, when trying to think how best to battle depressive episodes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter Four

To anyone else it might seem patently ridiculous to maintain the decorum of the outside world when one resides in a madhouse, but Richard is a great believer in routine and the role it plays in healing, just as he believes that maintaining a sense of normalcy is vital to a patient’s regaining the balance that will allow them to function once they leave the hospital.  Some of his colleagues in the past have disagreed—though there is little in the psychiatric community that is agreed upon—and find that without a change in routine, patients neglect to fully comprehend their madness, but Richard has more faith in people, even mad people.

It is with this in mind that he waits patiently, right hand resting on the heavy latch, left hand rapping tentatively on the door.  He hears the sound echo tinny and ugly inside the room and flinches.  It’s nearly as bad as the sounds of these heavy doors slamming closed, or the sounds of the latches squealing as they fall into place.  He tries another tack.

“Mr. Pace?  It’s Dr. Armitage.  We met briefly the other day, but I’m here to make a proper introduction.”  He waits for a response that isn’t forthcoming.  “Do you mind if I come in?”  His voice prompts only further silence.  It isn’t unexpected; often depressives keep odd hours,  sleeping more often during the day than others.  He raps and calls out again, and when no permission is given he slides the door open slowly, in case the man is engaged in something private.  It doesn’t occur to him that he might have attempted suicide again; Langley’s instructions on his care made very clear what items Mr. Pace is allowed to keep in his room.

It is very much what Richard expects: the room is bare, white-tiled floor and whitewashed brick soaking up the sun’s light but none of its warmth.  The most startling thing is that utter lack of personal effects, the lack of color.  The walls are barren, dreary and dirtied by years of use, the window shut against the morning sun and fresh air.  It would be sterile if the smell of sickness weren’t so strong.  There is one bed with a much-used metal frame, pitted with rust where the bedposts are welded to the frame.  The sheets are sewn to the mattress, as is the foot of the blanket tangled around the man’s impossibly long legs.  There is a small desk on which rests a leather-bound diary, but no pen or pencil or even charcoal, and the rickety stool is chained to the table leg.  The man himself is slumped on his side, turned to face the wall.

“Mr. Pace?”

There is a muffled noise that Richard takes for a greeting.  Slowly, he places his case on the table and pulls out the stool, wincing when its feet squeal against the floor.  His first impulse is to apologize, but that’s not a good foot to start this journey on.  “Do you remember me?  I’m sure you were a bit preoccupied at the time.”

The figure on the bed gives no sign of having heard.  If it weren’t for the unevenness of his breathing, Richard might think he were asleep.  But he’s seen this trick of avoidance too many times for it to put him off much—after all, he must remind himself, it isn’t personal—and he only clears his throat.  “I’d appreciate it greatly if you’d speak with me.  I only have a few questions.”

There is no answer, but Richard doesn’t expect one so soon.  He waits another moment and then sets his lure.  “Of course, if you have any questions for me, now’s the time to ask.”

Once it’s cast, Richard waits for the bite.  He sees a twitch in one broad shoulder, then hears a rustle of sheets.  Every minute movement seems amplified beneath the force of his gaze, and he tries not to show his triumph when the man takes his bait and slowly rolls onto his back.  For a moment he only blinks blearily at the ceiling and Richard wonders if he was truly sleeping, but then his sunken eyes land on Richard’s face and the sardonic twist to his mouth tells him otherwise.

“What questions would I have for you?” he asks.  His voice is low and rather sweet, Richard thinks, faintly hoarse--perhaps from disuse.  Despite his defensive demeanor, he doesn’t appear to be an unpleasant man, merely an unhappy one.  Richard supposes he’ll never truly be free of the exhaustion written in every line of his face.  “I’ll bet I know the rules around here a lot better than you do.”

Richard decides that ceding some ground will open up further dialogue; despite his obvious distaste for the situation, Mr. Pace doesn’t appear to be an unpleasant sort of man, merely one who isn’t keen on his future.  “I’ll wager you do.  Like the back of your hand?”

This provokes only a half-smile and a shake of the head.  The man closes his eyes again and sighs.  He’s still reluctant, Richard determines, and tries to put himself on better footing.  “Did they tell you Dr. Langley was leaving?”

Mr. Pace chuckles a bit.  “Not until he was already gone.”

“Do you wish he’d stayed?”  Richard is having a difficult time reading this man—he’s resigned, obviously, but his temper is good and it’s hard to imagine someone who smiles so readily taking a shaving blade to his wrists.  But he can see the thick scarring, pale and raised instead of raw and red, when Mr. Pace raises one hand to rub at his forehead.

“You can’t give me any aspirin, can you?” he asks plaintively.  “My head hurts.”  His face says that he’s resigned to a headache, that he anticipates Richard’s saying no.  That in itself is miraculous; Langley wrote that he sought medication and that none was to be given except in dire circumstance lest he hoard pills, but all the men and women Richard has met who wanted medication for something other than pain have been desperately hopeful when seeking it.  Nevertheless, he must tread carefully.  He doesn’t want to start off with a misstep that makes his patient think less of him.

“Is it a mundane headache?  You know that tea helps just as much.”

“Everything hurts,” the man mumbles.  He turns back over to face the wall, defeated already.  It’s a heartbreaking thing to see, and Richard wonders how Dr. Langley has so seriously misinterpreted Pace’s requests for aspirin.  AFter all, the soreness the ECT can cause is well-known, and at the teaching hospital he visited in London, administration of medication was part of routine after-care.

“Do you object to showing me you’ve swallowed them? Richard asks.

This is met with an emphatic shake of the head.

“Very well, then, I don’t see why not.  I’ll fetch you some when we’re through here, does that sound alright?”

He’s certain he’s made the right decision when Pace shows no ill will at the wait and in fact turns over to smile at him.  “I’ve got to work for my supper, right?”  It might have some off spiteful to anyone else, but the upturn of his lips and the laughter under his voice makes a joke of the thing and Richard feels a smile might be appropriate now.

“Just that,” he says.  “Would you mind very much if we didn’t start as strangers?  I’m—”

The man gives tilts his head.  “I heard you, but I don’t remember you.   I was--” he grimaces, “I was….  Nevermind.  And you already know who I am.”

“I don’t, really.”  Richard tries to make it sound as if he isn’t fishing.  He knows he’ll find out what he wants to know eventually—it’s his job, after all—but he’s intrigued by this man whose depressive episodes are so severe he isn’t even allowed writing utensils and yet who smiles and teases a perfect stranger who has power over him.  It’s a conundrum, though a pleasant one.  He’s beginning to think his files are unreliable, or that Dr. Langley was one of the old guard who views on depressives were more harmful than the current more scientific one.  “I know less than you think, anyway.”  He smiles again.  “Most psychiatrists do, though I’m probably the only one fool enough to admit it.”

“If you’re a fool, you’re in good company.”  Another grin, tired and showing smile lines in an otherwise young face.  “I’m Lee, then.  We can shake hands if you want to, Doctor.”

Richard likes the look of that smile.  “I don’t think that’s necessary.  I think we’ll be friends by the end of this, don’t you?”

Lee’s brows pull together in something like bemusement.  “That’s an odd thing to say.”

Astonishment at such straightforward accusation takes Richard aback—he isn’t able to hide it, so he hides his anxiety about being told he’s behaving strangely.  He’s confident in his methods, after all.  He raises one brow.  “Is it?  I like to think friends work better together than enemies.”

“It’s hard to get a clear picture of a friend,” Lee murmurs.  Then he shakes his head as if to dissipate the gloom that has infiltrated his good mood.  He doesn’t quite succeed, but he rallies.  “Isn’t it?”

It’s a mistake to break the camaraderie of the profession, but right now Richard feels more aligned with Lee than with Langley, in whose notes and entirely skewed portrait of this man was painted.  Richard finds it hard to believe that this good-natured resignation to his circumstances is a front and that within lays a depressive with hardly a hope of rehabilitation.  He doesn’t offer his thoughts on Langley, but he does smile.  “I don’t think so.  Perhaps you’ve met others who preferred to keep their distance; as for myself, I think that’s a mistake.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be so formal with me,” Lee says.  Richard is taken aback against by his forwardness, and the slightly cheeky way this advice is offered. 

He considers it.  “When you think we’re friends, you can call me by my Christian name.”

Lee considers him in return.  “That’s a deal.”

“Now, maybe you want to tell me a bit about yourself?”  Richard is appeased by the ease with which this man surrenders to him; none of his alarms are wringing, his stomach isn’t churning, he isn’t trying to figure out a way around walls and into the core of him.  His mind says it’s too easy, and perhaps it is, but he can’t for the life of him remember the last time it was so easy to earn trust.

Lee sighs.  “Who I am or how I ended up here?”

“Whichever you like.”  Richard wonders if he would be welcome to sit at the edge of the bed.  He ponders it, wondering whether the closeness would improve relations—amiable people are often open to and affected by physical intimacy.  He decides against it but does not discard the idea of offer a hand or an embrace at a later date.

“There isn’t much to know about me.  I’ve been committed, obviously.”

“And do you think that was unnecessary?”  Richard remembers the healing wounds and compares them to the scars that will never fade.  Fearing he himself showed symptoms, Richard has made an extensive study of depressives, and know the severity of feeling that drives a person to such an action.

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”  Lee looks at Richard thoughtfully.  “Disrespectful, maybe.”

It’s an interesting choice of words, and Richard says so.  He’s curious as to what Lee means by it.

“I’ve tried explaining too many times to think this once will make a difference.”  Suddenly Lee looks tired again.  “It’s not something a man can understand until he’s stuck there.”  His gaze moves from Richard’s face to the wall behind him—the first sign of resistance.  It’s normal, of course, and Richard thinks that given his candor they can move past this initial song-and-dance quickly.  Lee likes him, he’s sure.  Now all he has to do is maintain a pleasant and understanding disposition and half his work is done.

“Won’t you try me?”

Lee’s looks back at him and breaks out in a small smile.  Richard wonders what he sees, to look so wistful.  “You’re very sweet, you know.”

It’s better to interact on a human level instead of a clinical one and Richard has no trouble conjuring a wry look.  “I think you have more to say than that.”

There is power in silence, and Richard lets it stretch out between them until Lee shifts uncomfortably.  He presses his lower lip between his teeth, then lets it go with a sigh.  “I don’t mean to be rude, really, but I don’t see the point.”

This takes Richard a bit aback; perhaps this is the moment he understands that he doesn’t understand at all.  “You don’t see the point in getting better?”

“Not really, no.  I don’t think I can, even if I wanted to.”  Lee leans back as if to take in Richard’s response to this; he tries to hide his anxiety, but Richard can feel it feeding his own—how is he supposed to help a man who doesn’t want help at all?  There are many hiccoughs Richard anticipated in working with patients who struggle as much as those at Willard, but this isn’t one of them.

They are alone now: trapped in this silent little bubble of hopelessness.  Sound from the outside is distant, the words indiscernible, the footsteps inaudible.  The heavy metal door keeping them both inside sucks away the echoes of the cavernous halls, and seems to suck the air right out of Richard’s lungs.  He does his best to steady himself, knowing that if he loses control of his emotions then he’ll lose control of the situation.  He clears his throat.

“You think it won’t make a difference?  Treatment?”

The look Lee gives him is oddly hostile, as though he’s been betrayed.  He has no qualms about letting his emotions show with every movement of his mobile face: Richard envies him this luxury.

When he speaks, his voice is choked.  “I think there are plenty of notes you can run through to find out exactly what’s wrong with me.  You know already, don’t you?”

More than anything he’s ever hoped before, Richard hopes he hasn’t lost Lee’s goodwill.  Without goodwill there can be no trust.  He isn’t sure what landmine he’s stepped on, but he knows he’s set something in motion that could destroy their tentative relationship.  “I’d rather hear it from you.  You don’t think you ought to be here?”

“Have you ever thought the world was never going to get better?  Have you ever been  _ sure _ of it?” 

“Of course I have.”

It’s as if Lee expected those words and is disappointed to hear them. “You haven’t, or you’d understand.”

“Well, then, why don’t you try to explain it to me.”  Richard is trying not to wring his hands together and makes a conscious effort to relax on his seat.  It doesn’t help at all—Lee only turns his head away with a grimace.

“Because it’s tiring to say the same thing over and over and hope that just once someone will understand.  Even if you do sympathize, you can’t agree.  It would be easier on me and easier on everyone else if they’d let me have my way.”  The anger devolves into frustration in moments.  Lee draws his knees in closer to his chest, pressing his back against the wall.

“You really think your family would prefer you dead?”  Richard knows this probe is an unfair one and one many depressives would rather avoid.  Lee only looks surprised; he stares at Richard a moment, heavy brows creased, then tilts his head as if he’s thinking.

Richard sensing they’re not having the same conversation at all, but speaking as if through a translator.  When Lee speaks again, it’s as if he’s changed tack.

“They could grieve and move on.  Now I’m just a ghost, haunting their lives, day in and day out.  Isn’t that the truth of it?  They can’t let go because I’m not gone, but I’m not going to get better, and they can’t accept that.  No one can.  That’s how I know you’ve never been where I am.”

“Do you still feel that way?

“Mm.”

“Do you still want to die?”

Lee quiets.  He looks at him very seriously.  “Now more than ever.”

“Will you make me a solemn promise not to try?”  Richard bends forward, unable to stop himself from reaching out to wrap his fingers around that cool wrist.  His fingertips brush chill scar tissue, but Lee’s pulse thrums strong and regular under his touch.  The idea of that open face still and white as marble settles in the back of Richard’s mind like a threat.

To his surprise, Lee doesn’t pull away from his touch.  The warmth of success settles in his belly, not even quenched when Lee asks: “What does it matter to you?” 

His anger fades as quickly as it appeared.  Lee looks at him warily, but not with unfriendly eyes.

“It matters a great deal to me.”

Lee appears to struggle with this.  His eyes dart over Richard’s face, in search of some deception where there is none, and finally he tries to pull away.  Not without regret, Richard lets him slide free.  “But why?  You don’t know me.”  As is to protect himself from the honest concern in Richard’s eyes, he folds his arms over his chest.

There isn’t a satisfactory answer and Richard knows it.  He can’t explain the abstract: the warmth that kindles in his gut knowing he’s made even the smallest improvement in someone’s life, the desperate need to please his parents, and more, importantly, the way he feels when Lee looks at him. He squints at the expectant look on his patient’s face.

“I can’t explain it,” he offers with a self-deprecating laugh.  “You understand.”

Lee grins a bit and closes his eyes; Richard feels this puts a seal on their truce.  He doesn’t ask Lee to promise him again not to try and off himself.  He thinks it’s understood.

“Can’t argue with that, can I?”  Bashfully, Lee asks: “Could I have that aspirin now?”

  
“Of course.”  Richard is happy to get it for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song."


End file.
